Tennis: Britain buoyed up by Javer

MONIQUE JAVER won her singles match for the second day running to lead Britain to a 3-0 victory over Lithuania at the Federation Cup European/African regional qualifying competition in Nottingham yesterday.

She shrugged off her alarming slide down the world rankings to beat Edita Liachoviciute 6-4, 6-1, a day after a straight-sets victory over Luxembourg's Anne Kremer. Clare Wood beat Galina Misiurova 6-1, 6-2 in the second singles and then teamed up with Julie Salmon to beat Liachoviciute and Misiurova 6-4, 6-1 to leave Britain top of their qualifying group.

Javer had last won successive singles matches when she reached the semi-finals of the Kuala Lumpur Open 12 months ago. She went on to win only one more match on the Kraft Tour in 1992 and had won only three this year before her arrival in Nottingham, as her ranking fell from an August peak of 61 to 193.

However, the American-based British No 4 said: 'I don't look at the rankings. People go up and down all the time and it depends on your attitude how you cope with it.'

Javer surrendered a 2-0 lead in the first set to trail 2-3, but allowed her opponent only two more games as she romped home in exactly an hour. She said she has benefited from the on- court counselling of the team captain, Ann Jones. 'She gives a lot of good advice,' Javer said. 'When I started today it was very windy and what I was doing was not working. She told me to be patient and just keep the ball in the court.'

Wood, assuming the role of British No 1 after Jo Durie's withdrawal with injury, was in sparkling form as she conceded only three games in beating Misiurova in 48 minutes.

Britain play Russia today in a match which will probably determine which of them tops the group and has an easier draw in Saturday's play-off phase to decide the five qualifiers for the Frankfurt finals in July.